Dead for a Dollar (2022) Did this Walter Hill Western even get a theatrical screening? I never heard of it but it was damn good. Especially a great role for Willem Dafoe as a grizzly Texas gambler, (he gets a satisfying showdown with a pampered Englishman who should know better) but there’s a whole lot else to appreciate, including lots of widescreen shots of tiny guys on horses crossing parched desert landscapes. And tough Mexicans, and heroic black soldiers and a woman who Christoph Waltz is supposed to rescue but she don’t wanna go back, not to her vicious husband. All is revealed in small doses, but it adds up to something special that Quentin Whatsisname should learn from. (Watchable on Kanopy)
I know about them from reading about the films, but TBH, I don’t think I’ve actually spotted them myself. Maybe in some ways I’m just not attentive enough, at least visually!
You won’t see the cameos unless you stop counting how many times the basketball is passed.
I think in Psycho Hitch is one of the people going over the pedestrian crossing just before Marion’s boss.
In Rear Window I think he is also either walking down the pavement/sidewalk or crossing the road, seen through the alleyway.
Last night I watched a movie that is new to Netflix, “The Black Book”. The most notable thing about this movie to me is that it was written, produced, directed, and performed by Africans, and the setting was Nigerian. I give it 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.
This got me thinking about how Netflix and the age of worldwide streaming has given birth to a truly healthy worldwide movie industry. Yes, I know, there were Kung Fu movies back in the seventies, etc. True, but the money was shit and the movies showed it. This made me do some research, and I found this statement:
Hollywood used to export most global hit series and movies. Now, thanks to Netflix’s investments in international TV and film, programs like South Korea’s “Squid Game,” Spain’s “Money Heist,” and France’s “Lupin” are finding massive audiences around the world.
Foreign movies are getting better and more sophisticated because the money is there. I’m recognizing established Japanese and Korean stars who are actually very good actors. I think its great; not just for those nations, but also because it gives me a much wider and more varied choice of movies to watch.
AIUI the “New Nigerian Cinema” of “Nollywood” has been on a roll for about a decade now.
If you really wanna know:
Well I got both of those wrong haha 
My favorite AH cameo is in Lifeboat. As the movie began I wondered how he’s going to get into the boat. Finally a scrap piece of newspaper floats by, and the back has an advertisement for a fat-reduction program. He shows up in the before picture.
That’s hilarious.
Once you know where to look for the cameos, you can never not see him there.
I just rewatched what I believe to be one of the finest contributions to the cinematic arts ever put to celluloid. I think this is the fourth time I’ve watched and it just keeps getting better and better. The nuances, the subtext, the pathos. It almost brings one to tears.
I’m speaking, of course, of Moonfall (2022).
THE MOON NUTSCRAPES MANHATTAN!!!111!11
If you want a Moonfall-related laugh, Google what Neil deGrasse Tyson had to say about that movie.
Laugh? LAUGH? How dare you, sir, deign to laugh at this tour de force. For shame.
Spellbound (1945). I think it’s fair to say that this is the weakest of the Hitchcock series I’ve seen so far, but it’s Hitchcock, so still an enjoyable old film.
It has a few notable specific plot and characterization weaknesses, too. Lessee … lots of psychobabble, as someone already mentioned. Gregory Peck’s character and the psychoanalyst played by Ingrid Bergman fall totally in love ten minutes flat after they meet. Peck’s character turns out to have amnesia and doesn’t know who he is; Bergman tries to cure him with the following psychoanalytic technique: “Try to remember”! Peck also does a fine imitation of the famous fainting goat: whenever he’s traumatized, which is often, he’s out like a light! And Bergman’s old mentor in psychoanalysis is a perfect caricature of Sigmund Freud, who turns out to be a perfect interpreter of dreams: tell him your dream, and he’s tell you exactly what everything means! Bergman’s character knows that Peck the amnesiac could not possibly have murdered anyone, because otherwise she couldn’t possibly be in love with him. At one point, the police suspect from a picture they’ve just been given that the Bergman character in the picture is the same one they just spent half an hour chatting with face to face back at the house. But she was wearing glasses, so in order to confirm it, they take out a marker pen and draw cartoon glasses on the picture!
Come to think of it, now that I’ve written all that, I have to conclude that this movie contains a lot more silliness than I would ever have expected out of a HItchcock production.
Me! Me! (Extra ‘me’ for Discourse)
I saw The Creator at the theaters yesterday. I really wanted to like it more than I did.
Most films seem to be prequels, sequels or otherwise part of some cinematic universe, book adaptations, based on toys or video games, etc. But this was that rare thing; a movie not based on any of those things. And the movie was also made on a relatively small $80 million budget.
But this movie was kind of hokey and also seemed to be written as a metaphor or analogy for the US involvement in the Viet Nam War.
I was conflicted.
I am ok with the franchise stepping back from the Skywalker family. It’s the world that interests me and many others and at a certain point that Kardashian-esque family drama has played out on a galaxy scale enough.
Disney needs to remember Star Wars is Space Themed Fantasy, not Science Fiction. It is from it’s core escapism and in no way should be used to comment on modern society. It’s like a morality lesson at the end of a porn film. It’s not even ‘woke’, they are just two different things.
What franchise are you referring to? Was your post replying to mine? As a reminder, I posted about the 2023 movie The Creator, which has nothing to do with Star Wars or any other franchise, as far as I know.
Sorry, crossposted, my bad.